WEISS, Theodore (Russell) 1916-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born December 16, 1916, in Reading, PA; died April 15, 2003, in Princeton, NJ. Educator, editor, and author. Weiss was a well-regarded poet who, with his wife, was also notable for editing the influential Quarterly Review of Literature. After completing his undergraduate work at Muhlenberg College in 1938, he earned a master's degree from Columbia in 1940. He then embarked on an academic career, teaching at the University of Maryland, the University of North Carolina, and Yale University during the early and mid-1940s. From 1947 to 1966 he taught at Bard College, joining Princeton University in 1966 as a poetin-residence. This position turned into a professorship in English and creative writing, an office he held until his retirement in 1987. In addition to teaching, Weiss ran the Quarterly Review of Literature with his wife from 1943 until they decided to cease the journal's publication in 2000. During its run, it was widely viewed as an important literary periodical and was notable for publishing the poetry of writers such as e. e. cummings and Ezra Pound and regenerating interest in poets who had fallen into neglect by the academic community. As for his own writing, Weiss penned a number of poetry collections, including Gun-sight (1962), The World before Us: Poems 1950-1970 (1970), A Slow Fuse: New Poems (1984), and Selected Poems (1995), as well as writing and editing essay collections and literary studies and criticism. Among his many honors, Weiss was the recipient of a Wallace Stevens Award, a Shelley Memorial Award, and, in 1997, a PEN Club Special Achievement Award, bestowed on both Weiss and his wife for their work on the Quarterly Review of Literature.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Writers Directory, 18th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 2003).

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, April 22, 2003, p. B10.

New York Times, April 19, 2003, p. C6.

Washington Post, April 23, 2003, p. B6.